Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 7900 XT evaluation: No-fuss efficiency

Finest Costs Right now: Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 7900 XT

$922.85

Whereas fans drool over the ultra-premium, no-compromises expertise provided by Sapphire’s luxurious Nitro+ graphics playing cards, the corporate delivers the products for PC players on a finances, too. Moderately than loading up on nifty however cost-adding options like RGB and dual-BIOS switches, Sapphire’s Pulse sequence of GPUs as a substitute focuses on giving a fantastic, easy gaming expertise with out breaking the financial institution.

Living proof: The Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 7900 XT we’re reviewing at present. Ostensibly priced on the similar $899 as AMD’s reference 7900 XT, we’ve seen it going for as little as $849 on the streets. In change for that decrease worth, the Pulse affords a light manufacturing facility overclock, quieter fan noise, and a extra compelling show output configuration than the inventory mannequin—plus, via April 28, you will get a free copy of Sony’s The Final Of Us Half I for PC should you purchase the cardboard from a licensed vendor.

That’s fairly rad. Let’s dig in.

Word: See our roundup of the perfect GPUs for gaming to find out about competing merchandise, what to search for in a GPU, and shopping for suggestions.

Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 7900 XT options, specs, and design

The Sapphire Pulse is constructed utilizing the identical primary configuration because the reference GPU. You possibly can wade deeper into that in our authentic Radeon RX 7900 XTX and 7900 XT evaluation, however in a nutshell, it is a nice graphics card for 1440p and 4K/60 gaming alike, loaded with 20GB of GDDR6 VRAM, AMD’s superior Infinity Cache know-how, AV1 encoding, DisplayPort 2.1 (in contrast to Nvidia), and assist for game-enhancing Radeon options like Good Entry Reminiscence, Radeon Tremendous Decision, and FSR 2. And the brand new RDNA 3 graphics structure lastly made Radeon helpful for content material creators!

Sapphire

Sapphire didn’t change a lot beneath the hood. The Pulse 7900 XT affords a light overclock, hitting 2,075MHz reasonably than 2,025MHz, however that doesn’t virtually change efficiency except for sipping a bit extra energy (although the Pulse nonetheless solely requires a pair of normal 8-pin energy connectors to run).

Brad Chacos/IDG

Essentially the most thrilling technical tweak could also be its port configuration. Whereas the reference mannequin consists of twin DisplayPort 2.1 connections, an HDMI 2.1a port, and USB-C, the Sapphire Pulse 7900 XT as a substitute ditches the USB-C port for a second HDMI providing. That’s helpful for monitor flexibility and VR headset customers alike. It’s additionally a uncommon discover as of late.

However Sapphire revamped issues over the hood utterly, to welcome impact.

Brad Chacos/IDG

The Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 7900 XT’s customized cooling design works in a number of parts and options designed to enhance reliability and thermals. These embrace a steel backplate loaded with thermal pads to assist dissipate warmth, a trio of “angular velocity fan blades” with two-ball bearings that Sapphire claims “results in 44% more downward air pressure and up to 19% more airflow” in comparison with earlier generations, and clever fan management paired with ultra-accurate rotation pace for these blades. Add all of it up and the Pulse delivers a pleasantly quiet gaming expertise.

Sapphire additionally graced the Pulse 7900 XT with beefed-up circuitry and inner elements, resembling “ultra-high performance conductive polymer aluminum capacitors” to allow a 20-phase energy supply, a high-density PCB with copper blended in, and fuse safety to safeguard your valuable GPU if a element provides up the ghost. Sapphire even tosses a assist bracket into the field to fight potential GPU sag whereas this beast lurks in your PC case.

Brad Chacos/IDG

You would possibly want it. Whereas the Sapphire Pulse’s 2.7-slot width seems to be downright cheap subsequent to the 3- and 4-slot behemoths so widespread at present, it’s notably thicker than the svelte 2-slot AMD reference Radeon RX 7900 XT. The additional heft and ample cooling {hardware} make the Pulse run noticeably quieter than the reference card, nonetheless.

What you received’t discover with the Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 7900 XT: extras. Look elsewhere should you’re an fanatic that wishes fancy options like RGB, GPU fan headers, and dual-BIOS switches. Whereas definitely welcome, options like these add important additional price, and the Pulse line is laser-focused on strong, easy efficiency that beats what you usually get in budget-priced variations of a GPU. In order for you enthusiast-focused extras, strongly think about Sapphire’s premium Nitro+ line as a substitute. It’s all the time improbable however particularly spectacular this technology.

Sufficient speak. Let’s dig into efficiency.

Our check system

We check graphics playing cards on an AMD Ryzen 5900X PC used solely for benchmarking GPUs. We now check with PCIe Resizable BAR (often known as Good Entry Reminiscence on Ryzen programs) energetic, as most fashionable gaming PCs launched within the final 4 years assist the performance-boosting characteristic, both natively or by way of a motherboard firmware replace. Nvidia additionally recommends turning on the optionally available “Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling” choice in Home windows to let the RTX 40-series stretch its legs to the fullest, so we’ve made that tweak as properly. A lot of the {hardware} was supplied by the producers, however we bought the storage ourselves.

We normally check quite a lot of video games spanning varied engines, genres, vendor sponsorships (Nvidia, AMD, and Intel), and graphics APIs (DirectX 9, 11, DX12, and Vulkan), to attempt to characterize a full vary of efficiency potential. Because the 7900 XT’s efficiency is already properly established and the Sapphire Pulse doesn’t include a fierce overclock, we spot-checked a smaller handful of titles spanning these varied APIs to point out the efficiency variations between the Pulse and the reference card.

Spoiler alert: They’re negligible. Try our authentic Radeon RX 7900 XTX and 7900 XT evaluation for a deeper set of benchmarks and basic AMD RDNA 3 evaluation should you’re . We’ll be presenting these outcomes with out a lot commentary. 

Every recreation is examined utilizing its in-game benchmark, sanity checked by Nvidia’s FrameView software, on the highest attainable graphics presets until in any other case famous, with VSync, body price caps, real-time ray tracing or DLSS results, and FreeSync/G-Sync disabled, together with every other vendor-specific applied sciences like FidelityFX instruments or Nvidia Reflex. We’ve additionally enabled temporal anti-aliasing (TAA) when accessible.

We run every benchmark a minimum of thrice and record the typical consequence for every check. Outdoors of esports, we’ve restricted our benchmarks to 4K and 1440p resolutions, as these are the pure suits for these juggernaut GPUs.

Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 7900 XT gaming efficiency

Brad Chacos/IDG

Brad Chacos/IDG

Brad Chacos/IDG

Brad Chacos/IDG

Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 7900 XT energy and thermals

Right here’s the place the important thing variations between the AMD reference design and the Sapphire Pulse will really shine. AMD designed the reference Radeon RX 7900 XT to suit right into a tiny two-slot design; Sapphire engineered the Pulse for higher acoustic efficiency.

We check energy draw by looping the F1 22 benchmark at 4K for about 20 minutes after we’ve benchmarked every little thing else (to heat up the GPU) and noting the very best studying on our Watts Up Professional meter, which measures the ability consumption of our whole check system. The preliminary a part of the race, the place all competing vehicles are onscreen concurrently, tends to be probably the most demanding portion. 

This isn’t a worst-case check; it is a GPU-bound recreation operating at a GPU-bound decision to gauge efficiency when the graphics card is sweating arduous. In case you’re enjoying a recreation that additionally hammers the CPU, you can see increased total system energy attracts. Think about your self warned.

Brad Chacos/IDG

The Sapphire Pulse affords largely the identical efficiency because the reference 7900 XT, so it’s no shock to see it draw roughly comparable ranges of energy as properly. All of those high-end GPUs are comparatively voracious, nonetheless. Energy requires energy.

We check thermals by leaving GPU-Z open through the F1 22 power-draw check, noting the very best most temperature on the finish.

Brad Chacos/IDG

The Sapphire Pulse delivers barely increased thermals than the reference 7900 XT, however temperatures stay wonderful, and the rationale these thermals are increased is as a result of the Pulse’s additional heatsink bulk and slower-spinning angular velocity followers run a lot quieter than the reference card.

Do you have to purchase the Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 7900 XT?

When AMD launched its new RNDA 3-powered Radeon 7000-series, the $899 Radeon RX 7900 XT didn’t present compelling sufficient worth to advocate. You’d be higher off spending one other $100 and grabbing the superior Radeon RX 7900 XTX as a substitute.

Now that we’re beginning to see reductions (and an superior Final of Us PC recreation bundle) trickle in, the Radeon RX 7900 XT shines a bit brighter. We’ve seen the Sapphire Pulse accessible as little as $849, and different fashions for even much less. That pits the 7900 XT immediately towards customized GeForce RTX 4070 Ti fashions, and the Radeon card wins that battle each time with its quicker 1440p/4K efficiency and ample 20GB of reminiscence. Nvidia wins on ray tracing and content material creation, however for pure gaming, the Radeon RX 7900 XT delivers rather more bang on your buck.

Brad Chacos/IDG

And should you’re in search of a strong, easy Radeon RX 7900 XT that received’t break the financial institution, strongly think about the Sapphire Pulse. The Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 7900 XT delivers a quick, pixel-packed gaming expertise at noticeably decrease noise ranges than the reference 7900 XT—precisely what Sapphire got down to do. Investing in Sapphire’s rock-solid customized cooling for a similar or much less than a reference mannequin makes it a no brainer. It’s a bit thicker in your case, positive, and also you received’t get additional options like RGB or dual-BIOS switches, however the Sapphire Pulse is highly effective, pleasantly quiet, and comes with a welcome dual-HDMI port configuration that you simply received’t discover on most different graphics playing cards.

With fashionable graphics playing cards costing a lot, nonetheless, you need to be capable of get a strong excessive refresh-rate 1440p and 4K/60 gaming for even much less with a last-gen GPU just like the Radeon RX 6800 XT, which will be discovered for as little as $579 as of late. It’s undoubtedly slower than AMD’s newest and best choices however store round should you can—whereas the Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 7900 XT affords compelling worth versus its direct fashionable opponents, in at present’s GPU market, last-gen is the place you’ll discover the perfect offers.